ABSTRACT
Whether as news, fiction or hybrid docudrama, crime has been a consistently popular subject for media attention, prompting a stream of academic debate on the nature and impact of the diverse representations (Erikson et al. 1987; Jewkes 2004; Reiner 2007). Despite differing opinions as to this relationship there exists a broad consensus that the media tend towards oversimplification, particular forms of selectiveness and hyperbole, focussing largely on individual pathologies and violence. Structural factors such as poverty, the political and social construction of crime, or the interface between the legal and illegal are given considerably less coverage across the various genres.
